Top 10 Most Devastating Alien Invasions in Movies

If the past few decades' worth of science fiction movies have taught us anything, it's that aliens rarely come in peace. They might appear in the form of a massive armada or shape-shifting monsters, but their goal is always the same — destroy humanity and take over the world.

Admittedly the goods guys usually pull out a W in the third act, but you can’t fault the invaders for trying. This list takes a look at how close some of cinema’s most famous aliens came to ultimate victory, and how much of humanity was displaced along the way. We’re also knocking points from the extraterrestrial baddies if they forgot to factor something incredibly obvious in to their evil plans, like I dunno… water?

10. The Martians from Mars Attacks

The Martians of Mars Attacks may err on the conventional side of world domination, with lazer guns, flying saucers, and brightly colored green space suits, but these brainy little buggers are as malicious as it gets.

They deface humanities greatest landmarks, massacre Congress, and transplant Sarah Jessica Parker’s head onto a poodle. But not as some kind of advanced psychological warfare or anything... nope, they just seem to get a kick out of it. Thank goodness these walking incarnations of B movie sci-fi satire experience cranial combustion when exposed to Slim Whitman’s Indian Love Call, otherwise who knows what Earth would have looked like by they time they were through?

The aliens in Attack the Block packed a double whammy. Not only were these giant, gorilla-like monsters brutally efficient in their task, traveling and breeding more like spores than mammals — they also chose to make South London the staging ground for their bloody takeover of Earth. Dark, densely populated, and not exactly a hotbed of military activity, is what we're saying. Thankfully for humanity’s sake, a pre-Star Wars John Boyega and his gang of street ruffians were there to give the hairy hellions a nice earthly welcome.

8. The Androids From The World's End

You know what ruins a perfectly good night out on the town? How about everyone you know being killed and replaced by a legion of biomechanical androids who are controlled by a super intelligent, possibly artificial, alien hivemind? The Network, as it’s called in The World’s End, may sound nice (it is, after all, voiced by legendary British actor Bill Nighy), but make no mistake, its intentions are as dark and misguided as any other alien race on this list.

Aiming to bring humanity up to the standards set for other races in the galaxy, this ancient race of aliens infiltrates human civilization and slowly weeds out uncooperative people by killing and replacing them with identical androids that shoot light out of their mouth and eyes. Unfortunately for The Network, it vastly underestimated how uncooperative and disorderly a bunch of drunks can actually be.

Apparently the US military in the Marvel Cinematic Universe only has two solutions for dealing with alien invasions — do absolutely nothing, or launch a nuclear warhead at a densely populated urban center and hope for the best. Lucky for them, the Avengers were already on hand to deal with the hordes of Chitauri warriors and floating space whales pouring through a wormhole. They proved that all you need is a little persistence (plus a thunder god, a really angry green guy, and a dude with an inexhaustible supply of trick arrows) to take down one of the most feared fighting forces in the universe.

The real question is what will happen once Thanos decides to finally lift his wrinkly, purple butt off his throne and take matters into his own hands?

Note to any alien races looking to invade Earth: check your calendar. These clueless klutzes gave invasion a good go, firing off several money shots and obliterating world landmarks with reckless abandon. Hell, not even good old-fashioned nukes could bring down their Oreo-esque ships. But which day did these tentacled dunces decide to enslave humanity? July 4th — aka Independence Day — the one day guaranteed to get Americans kissing their flag and waving their guns like maniacs. Back to the drawing board, fellas.

Any aspiring alien invaders may want to check their antivirus software, too — lax firewall security cost these guys the planet. Hopefully they've taken all of this into account in the 20 years leading up to the sequel.